


Even Closer

by ausfil



Category: Westlife
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Childhood Friends, Confessions, Cute, Dancing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Reminiscing, Roommates, Sickfic, Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 19:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19911304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausfil/pseuds/ausfil
Summary: Kian cancels his date to take care of Shane and his cold, and he would do it any day in a heartbeat.





	Even Closer

“Well, you look dead,” Kian walks down the stairs, fixing his shirt collar, when he sees Shane spread across the couch with glowing red cheeks.

“Thanks. I think I caught the flu,” Shane moans and pulls the blanket up to his neck.

“Shit,” Kian kneels down in front of him and feels his forehead, “you’re burning.”

“It’s fine. You going somewhere? You look nice,” Shane smiles despite himself, and Kian smirks.

“Thanks. Got a date.” Kian looks at Shane once more, at the small beads of sweat on his nose, the look in his eyes that Kian really couldn’t leave behind without losing his mind. “But I can stay if you like.”

“You’d rather get my snotty tissues than a date?” Shane scoffs at him. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” Kian takes off his jacket and shoes. He ignores the guilty tilt of Shane’s mouth and fishes out his phone instead. **Gotta cancel tonight. Sorry mate** , he texts. He’s about to chuck it to the side when Shane snatches it.

“ _Gotta cancel tonight. Sorry mate_? You’re a dick, Egan.” Shane laughs, then coughs it out. “You really don’t have to though.”

“Please. I’d never hear the end of how I left you to die when I come back.” Kian winks and nudges him. Shane rolls his eyes and sits up. The blanket around him makes him look smaller than he already is, and something aches in Kian’s chest.

“I’m-“

“Don’t be sorry,” Kian interrupts. Shane looks grateful it makes him smile. “We’ll have a night in. Watch some Friends. Make you drink all the tea in the world. It’ll be chill.”

Shane kisses him on the cheek. Lets him go upstairs to get changed back into his sweats.

***

Shane’s laughing like an idiot at Chandler’s one-liners as if he hasn’t seen them all a thousand times already, and nothing makes Kian happier tonight. He puts his arm around the boy, pecks a kiss in his hair and makes sure he doesn’t stare too long when Shane looks up at him.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing. You’re just ugly.”

“Fuck off,” Shane shoves him then cuddles back up to him, and Kian tries to _breathe_.

Kian remembers when he was just five years of age, meeting this boy that he couldn’t seem to stop staring at until it got weird, that he didn’t want to send home after a day in the playground, that he always wanted to pick first in his game of tag.

Then when he was twelve, when they got cast in the same local musical, and he still couldn’t stop staring at him. He still didn’t want to send him home after the sea of claps marking the end.

Then when he was sixteen, when Kian came out for the first time, when he had said “I think I’m bi” to this boy whom he still never wanted to take his eyes off of. And when Shane gave him a hug, was teary himself saying “thank you for telling me”, “you’re still the same Kian”. There had been words trapped behind Kian’s lips that only wanted to kiss one thing, but he never got around to saying them. To this day, he never got around to saying how important Shane was, because that would change everything and that was the last thing he wanted.

And then when Shane came out to him a year later, he thought oh. Maybe. Just maybe. But history clung onto his ankles and wrapped its palm around his mouth.

Now that they’re hitting their mid-twenties soon, renting out a flat in the heart of Dublin together, it’s been long since Kian shoved that down.

“Sorry you cancelled your date tonight,” Shane says as he rests his head on Kian’s shoulder.

“I said it’s fine.”

“Still. Where were you gonna go?”

Kian shrugs. “Just dinner. Maybe a movie or dancing or something afterwards. I don’t know.”

“Dancing sounds nice,” Shane punctuates that sentence with coughs. Kian snickers.

“I guess. This is nice too though.” Nicer. Much nicer.

“We can still dance,” Shane sits up and looks at him like he’s had an Einstein idea, and Kian never trusts these ideas. No, not since the time they were nine and Shane thought jumping from a balcony would somehow help them grow taller. They were and still are tiny.

“In sweats? No thanks. And in _those socks_?” Kian cocks his head towards Shane’s fluffy pink socks with a unicorn print.

“You’re the one who got these for me! Piss off. I love them.”

“They’re not exactly dancing shoes.”

“They can be if you want them to be,” Shane says triumphantly and runs to his room. Comes back two seconds later with a pair of fluffy white socks with a rainbow print. He does a little curtsy and offers the socks. Kian thinks his heart might explode. “May I have this dance?”

“You’re a fucking idiot, Shane.” Kian’s stomach hurts as he laughs, as he kicks away the hand.

“Ah come on,” Shane throws them in his face and pauses Friends. Puts on a ballad from his phone instead.

Kian’s rolls his eyes but can’t seem to defeat the smile that wants to creep up on his face. He puts the socks on, feels them hug his feet as he takes Shane’s hand and stands up. Shane puts his hand on his waist and pulls him in, the other hand held tight in his. Kian swallows hard.

“Would the date have went something like this?” Shane asks, his face a little too close.

Kian clears his throat. Looks away at a distance. “Maybe.”

“You’re a shit dancer.” Shane laughs and pulls him in closer. Closer. Fuck. “Loosen up a little.”

Their chests are touching, Shane’s breath faint on the crook of his neck. Shane’s hands slide down a little to rest on his hip, guiding him in this slow dance in the middle of their living room. In dancing socks. Kian would have laughed at themselves if his heart wasn’t beating so hard against his rib cage.

“Sorry. Got two left feet.”

“Well, I got two right ones. Perfect match. You’re fine, love.” Shane rests his warm forehead on his shoulder. Kian scrapes up all his might to not kiss his hair.

“How you feeling?” he asks instead.

“Okay. Probably need to sleep soon. Think my fever went down a little though.” Kian nods. “Hey,” Shane lifts his head and looks into his eyes. “Thanks for staying with me tonight. It’s sweet of you.”

“No problem,” Kian smiles back at him, and he feels sunshine in this moonlit night. “I think this is the first time I’ve slow danced with you.”

“We used to make up dumb dance routines but never this,” Shane smirks and rests his head back down.

“Remember the one we made to Quit Playing Games?”

“Jesus,” a soft song of laughter fills the air, and Kian’s really glad he cancelled his date tonight. “We thought we were so cool.”

“We were kind of cool. At least you were. Had all those girls chasing after you.”

“Barking up the wrong tree,” they scoff. “No boys liked me though.”

“ _I_ liked you.”

“You did?” Shane stops his feet. Looks up at him again.

Um.

Kian opens his mouth and words don’t come out fast enough. “I- Not. Um. Not in like, that way.”

“Oh,” he doesn’t know what that look is on Shane’s face, but it flickers away when Shane leads the dance again. God, Kian’s ribs hurt. “Okay.”

Kian wants to say something. Anything. But all he can hear are Shane’s coughs and sniffles and his heartbeat in his eardrums. His throat feels dry. The few seconds of silence when the song shuffles over to the next feels like a coffin. He thinks maybe they should stop dancing, but he also doesn’t want to let go of this hand for the world.

“Remember in my last year of high school, the day before my chemistry exam,” Shane begins, and his voice sounds a little different. A little lower. Quieter. Whispering through the night with every step of their fluffy socks. “I got really sick, and you cancelled all your plans to come over and read my notes to me for hours?”

Kian had forgotten about that. Feels a little broken all of a sudden. “I think so,” he utters.

“Did you do that for me just because I was your best friend?”

“You’re still my best friend.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Shane stops dancing again. He takes a step back and looks, _stares_ , into his eyes, and Kian thinks maybe he’s the one who’s sick.

“Shane, I…” Kian sighs. Shane’s never like this. He’s always the one to laugh at stupid things, to be carelessly dumb and unforgivingly kind. Not like this with eyes that could burn holes in his bones. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

Shane’s hands slip from his body. Kian misses the touch already. “Nothing,” Shane murmurs and scrubs his face. He plumps back down on the couch, and Kian doesn’t know if it’s okay to sit down next to him. “Sorry, I’m just sick and emotional and… Whatever.”

Kian decides to sit down. There’s a small distance between, and it feels like a mile.

“Can we pretend like that didn’t happen?” Shane’s staring at his hands and Kian feels a fire light itself in the pit of his stomach.

“If you want.”

Shane fell silent. The song shuffles to the next on the playlist, and they listen to a good half of it before the fire in Kian’s stomach yells at him.

“When we were in high school, I um…” Kian swallows hard, feels a slight tingle in the tips of his fingers. “That night I read your notes to you, I… it was a really important day for me.”

He feels Shane look at him. Doesn’t have the courage to look back.

“I had this girl I really liked, and I was going to ask her out to the school dance. I had a speech prepared and everything.” He hears Shane cough beside him, not before a small chuckle. He chuckles too. “But when you called me to tell me that you were sick and nervous about your test and all that, I… I didn’t care about the dance. I didn’t care about her. All I wanted was to be there for you.”

“And you were,” Shane croons, his hand slipping back into Kian’s. “What do you want now?”

Kian finally looks back at him, into eyes that aren’t really giving him a clear idea of what the right answer is. “I…” He lets out a shuddering sigh and closes his eyes. “I still want to be here for you.”

“In what way?”

Shane’s voice is shaking, he realises. He still doesn’t open his eyes. The hand in his slips away again, and maybe he fucked this up. Maybe he lost it all tonight. He’s about to open his eyes and apologise, beg to forget this conversation ever happened, but Shane’s hand caresses his jawline and tilts it up, and tender lips brush against his.

He opens his eyes when they brush away just as quickly. Feels a lump in his throat when Shane’s smiling at him. He can almost see the little boy he was in love with all those years ago.

“Think I just gave you my cold. Sorry.” He says with a childish spring back in his voice.

“I don’t care,” Kian lets out a deflated laugh and wipes his watery eyes. “Look, you… you asked me in what way?” Kian trails his finger across Shane’s bottom lip. Feels it curve against his touch. “In that way. If you’d let me.”

Shane clears his throat and fails to hide that stupid smile. He leans in for another kiss that ends just before Kian can cling on. Kian feels like he’s caught up in a little storm, but he wouldn’t change this for the world.

“Before we talk about everything,” Shane jumps up on his feet instead and does another curtsy, “may I finish this sock dance with you?”

“Fuck, you’re an actual idiot,” Kian shakes his head, but doesn’t waste a second to take that hand. He doesn’t think he ever will anymore, not with the past twenty years wasted. “You may.”


End file.
